Insomniac
by fairytalemanipulator
Summary: One thought leads to another as Dean tries to fall asleep.PG13 for language. Ch. 2 now up!
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Insomniac**

**Author: fairytalemanipulator**

**Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to the WB. Not me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be feeding my appetite for DeanAngst through fanfiction. Haha.**

**Pairings: SamJess, JohnMary, a little bit of DeanCassie (not too much for all the haters- I'm not a big fan of that pairing either, but I couldn't completely avoid it)**

**Spoilers: Just to be safe, a little bit of everything up through "Shadow"**

**Summary: Oneshot. One thought leads to another as Dean tries to fall asleep. Reviews will be appreciated- I decided to break this up into two chapters due to the incredible long-ness of it. If you guys like it, review and you'll get more. The next chapter has even more contemplating Dean angst. Yay! Review!**

Sam didn't know what kept his brother awake at night. What he did know was that Dean was terrible at faking sleep. Sam knew the pattern of Dean's breathing, and its irregularity proved that Dean was up and awake. The constant moving around in the bed didn't help Dean's case either, but Sam didn't want to bring it up. So both brothers lay awake in the silence of the night; both trying to escape their thoughts.

Sometimes Dean got too pulled in to the world of his mind. He would analyze the current case they were on, or think about other things. _Did I fix that broken shotgun? Do we need more silver bullets? How many more dollars can I charge on that card? _Dean was an insomniac, because his brain would never rest. And one night, Dean stayed up thinking about his life. At the moment, he was thinking of women.

Dean wasn't thinking about just any women, and he wasn't thinking about them in the flippant manner that he was known for. He was just _being pensive, _as Sam would say. His arm lay over his eyes, as he explored the darkness behind his eyelids with new thoughts. They had just finished a case involving a single mother of three who had been attacked by a pyrodemon. The mother was horribly scarred on the right side of her body, but emotionally, _Man, she was fucked up. Traumatized_ was all Dean could think of. She barely recognized her own children, and they barely recognized her.

_That sucks_.

How would Dean feel if his own mother couldn't recognize him because of her emotional state? Dean would be messed up—that is, if his mother were still alive. Dean shifted in bed, unknowingly drawing the attention of the wide-awake, pretending-to-be-awake Sam. Dean's thoughts shifted gears. He knew that if his mother were still alive, he would never have been raised this way. Sammy, Dad, Mom, and Dean would be the perfect little suburban family. They would have grown up on tales of Aladdin, not how to kill a werewolf in three easy shots. The boys would have been tucked in at night, and they would be reassured that nothing lived in their closet; not handed a .45 to fend for themselves.

_Why did it have to be her? Why did it decide to do this to OUR family?_

Dean knew that whatever the son-of-a-bitch was that took his mother, it took her for a reason. It was sending a message, just like with Max's mother, just like with Jess. They were all connected somehow, _and Dad knows where it is…_Dean's thoughts wandered yet again. _No wonder I can't sleep. _Maybe once they killed it, once they found it—maybe then, he'd get a good night's sleep. But then—_then what? _Dean wasn't angry at Sam for saying he didn't want things to be the same; hell, Dean didn't even know what he wanted.

_All I want is what's best for you. And if it's for you to be away from me, then so be it._

But Dean knew that Sam—_Sammy—_wouldn't willingly distance himself from Dean again. Having a normal life was Sam's dream, white picket fence and all. _I'll be damned if I stand in his way. _What would his mother have thought about Dean's selfishness? _Well, I'll never know, will I?_

Dean didn't know what he wanted, but Sam didn't know what he wanted either. After Jessica's murder, he was like a lonely little bird with a broken wing. He only wanted to kill the demon, but he didn't know what would come after that. _He wants to go back to school…_but Dean had detected hesitation in his brother's voice when he expressed his wishes. Dean knew it would be hard to go back to Stanford, after everything that happened there. _We gotta be cursed or something. Sam's girlfriend, our mom…_Cassie. Dean thought about his first love. He turned over onto his stomach and buried his head in the pillow. He had made an ass out of himself trying to get her attention the first time he ever saw her—and it worked. Dean grinned into his pillow, just thinking about all the good times they had. _And I left her behind._ The grin faded as he contemplated his seemingly rash decision. Sam had asked him why he didn't want to stay, and Dean made some dumbass remark about wanting to see the world or some shit like that. The real reason…Dean didn't want to think it. But of course, the thought came out anyway. _I didn't want her to end up on the ceiling too._

Dean thought about his one-night stands. He wouldn't even bother to call them relationships, because _like hell they were._ The longest one lasted a week, when he was down in Palm Beach last year. This was pre-Cassie. Post-Cassie Dean ended up in bars every night, banging one girl after the other in the dirty girl's restrooms in the back. He even screwed some blonde out by the dumpsters in the alley, not to mention the desk clerk at the motel. _What was her name? Oh yeah—Trina. She was one helluva cat_. Dean remembers his early teenage years, sneaking out late at night to meet his many girlfriends for a night of groping and _I'm-not-ready-yet_s. But what he remembers the most is the loneliness; because as a teenager, the most time he had spent in one place was three months in Ohio. He made friends fast, but of course they didn't last. Dean somehow managed to make more enemies than friends, possibly due to the fact that he was the reason behind half the relationship breakups in his school. He made girlfriends fast too, and broke up with them just as quickly. They never really felt right for him, and Dean never figured out why. _Women are complicated creatures, _his dad had told him once, soon after he got 'the talk' a few years too late. _Respect them, love them, don't try too hard to understand them because you'll just get a headache. _He respected women, despite his reputation, because _women _included his mother, and he would never intentionally dishonor her memory. Unfortunately, many of his incidents were unintentional. Like the time Sammy caught an eighteen year old Dean in an empty classroom after school doing something so reprehensible with a freshman Dean was suspended for a week. Sammy had tattled, of course, because Dean refused to let the ninth-grader ride to school with him in their dad's awesome Impala. Because, as Dean said, _Little brothers get to walk_.

The problem with his high-school girlfriends was that all they wanted was someone to talk to, but they never listened. His first time, he was 15. He was in bed with a girl from his freshman bio class because her parents were out of town, and he was desperate for a release from the fighting at his house. Sam had been arguing with their dad for three days in a row, and was now trying the silent treatment method. Dad reciprocated, resulting in silent tension that stretched so long Dean grabbed his bag and said he was going to the library to do homework. They had looked at him like he was crazy, but knew better than to stop him when he was in a mood.

Dean had dialed the number of a girl he had just gotten the day before, and she invited him over. Next thing he knows, she's gasping beneath him on the bed while he closes his eyes in pleasure- _or pain?_ After they were done, he stayed in bed with her long enough to hear gossip about every single one of their classmates; some of it so ridiculous that he finally got up and grabbed his clothes, which happened to be flung across the entire pink and purple painted room. That was why he never had a girlfriend for too long; they were all the same. Gossip and compliments, flowers and dinner. Well, except Cassie.

Dean cared too much about Cassie to keep her with him. He knew what would happen if she came along. She would get injured and he would feel guilty, because of course, it would be his fault. Then she would leave, and he would be alone again. _Better to embrace the loneliness on my own terms._

Dean sighed into the penetrating darkness of his mind, and turned over once more until he was on his side, facing his brother's bed. He opened his eyes, staring into the recesses of the room, trying to find something other than fleeting shadows to look at. He settled for the blanketed form of his brother, who was snoring slightly after finally having fallen asleep. Sam had been sleeping better, surprisingly, since the incident in Chicago. Dean supposed that seeing their father had something to do with that. Even though they had to split up, Dean knew that it was a comfort to their little family to be together, if only for an hour.

In the bed next to him, Sam let out a little whoosh of air, and Dean smiled a genuine smile at his sleeping brother.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

**A/N: I hope you liked it! I loved writing this…tell me what you think so far! I promise it gets angstier. That line about loving women and not understanding them came from my boyfriend. He's one of a kind, he is…I think he got that from somewhere, though. Eh, I digress. Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Ok, guys, here's chapter two- hope you like! Now it's over...Please review!**_

_Geez- how many girls have I actually been with?_ Dean wondered incredulously to himself. He had been twiddling his thumbs for the last hour, making a mental list in his head of every single girl he had ever laid. He knew that he was attractive, and he also knew that he had a highly inflated ego. He wasn't trying to elevate his pedestal, he was honestly wondering. _More than you wanted_…his inner voice whispered, inducing guilt. _Yeah right, _Dean's comforting conscience lashed out. _You treated them like toys,_ the other voice nagged. _Just because you needed something to make you feel not so lonely; but it didn't help, did it? It just made it worse. Because you were never straight with them- not with a single one. Do you even remember them all? Lauren, Kelly, Frida, Bri… _Dean shut the voice out, denying the truth. Yet there was a shred of fact in there. Dean was known as the one-night-stand guy, the tomcat in the sack, the guy who liked leather and rough sex; but that wasn't all there was to him. None of his girls except Cassie had known that, because he wasn't sissy enough to tell them. Dean snorted, thinking of how that conversation would have gone. _I'm a really sensitive guy, I like flowers and long, moonlit strolls along the beach. Oh, and I'm also currently avoiding the feds, because there's a couple of warrants out there for connections with murders and insurance fraud. I also hunt ghosts as a job, and I know how to shoot every kind of gun there is. I can kill a guy twice my size by hitting the right pressure points, isn't that great…_and on and on. He told the truth to Cassie, because he was tired of being alone with his burden. It wasn't a mistake and he didn't regret it, but he now knew that Cassie wasn't the one for him. It obviously wasn't meant to be.

Dean sat up, the rusty bedframe squeaking under him. He got to his feet slowly, and padded quietly over to the bathroom. He left the light off so Sam wouldn't wake up and ran the water. He splashed it onto his hands and his face, the warmth of it lulling his eyelids closed.

Sam didn't know how much Dean really fretted about everything. About their job, about Sam, about Dad, about people in general, about himself…because, fact is, Dean was incredibly scared of ending up alone. He had _one _meaningful relationship in his life of twenty-six years, and about a zillion one night stands as testament to his fear of commitment.

_I am such a loser._ Even Sammy, of all people, had had more than just Jess as a serious relationship. The year after Dean graduated, when Sam was a sophomore in high school, he started dating some chick—_what was her name again? Jamie, that's right—_and he was with her for the entire amount of time that they spent in Buffalo, New York.

Even after they moved, in the beginning of Sam's junior year, he kept a long-distance relationship with her, constantly on the phone with her, emailing her. Dean would never admit it, not even if Sam threatened to shoot it out of him; but he was extremely jealous. Sam, with his boy next door, innocent school kid looks always got the girl in the end. His girlfriends always cooed over his little brother, with his pool-brown baby boy eyes and amazing communication skills.

_Isn't that the way it always is, though? The good guy gets the girl. And I'm the bad guy. He's the type to get married, anyhow. He needs the practice more than me, _Dean reassured himself, his ego taking a hit. He didn't believe any of the crap his brain was throwing at him, and as he looked himself in the mirror, he knew that he had never been happy with the one-nighters. Sure, they were a good release of passion, and they could be pretty fun—_especially if the chick digs cars,_ Dean thought, smiling—but they weren't what made life worthwhile. No, that would be a real commitment.

_What Mom and Dad had, and what Sammy and Jess had. What me and Cassie had._ _Our family must be cursed_, Dean thought to himself, shaking his head as he made his way out the bathroom door and settled himself in the pool of blankets once again. Sam had once asked Dean if he ever wanted a wife and kids, and Dean had blown off the question to avoid the ever-approaching chick-flick moment. But in his thoughts, Dean could think whatever he wanted with no intrusions. And that night, as he thought about the single mother with her burn scars, and he thought about his Jessica and Cassie, he thought about Mom and Dad's marriage. And he thought of how Sam would have probably married Jess. And he thought of his own faceless, nameless wife wearing an apron and kissing the Dean, Jrs goodbye as they headed out to the bright yellow school bus in the morning. And he pictured his coffee in a stark white mug, in a grey office filled with cubicles, and coworkers who annoyed the hell out of him and got insanely drunk at office parties.

And he wasn't sure if that's what he wanted. But he did know one thing he wanted. He wanted Sam, and Dad, and himself to be a real family again. It broke his heart to have to send Dad off, but Dean thought to himself, _I think Sam understands now. I think he knows that to keep the family safe, we have to stay apart._ _Sam wants to have a family again, he just doesn't want it to be a family formed out of vengeance._ Dean's own words echoed in his head. He knew it would take some time for Sam and himself to sort through this mess, but he wasn't in a hurry. Neither of them was going anywhere. _For now. _He wasn't going to question his fate. However he ended up, so be it. If he managed to land himself a corporate job, _more power to ya._ If he could get hitched and make miniDeans, then _good for me_. But if it was his destiny to save people from the things that lurk in the shadows, _so be it._ Because he wasn't prepared yet to trade in his Impala for a Honda Civic, and exchange his boots for dress shoes. He could play the part sometimes, if he had to for a gig, but he wasn't ready yet.

Dean felt himself falling asleep, as he drifted to that place between sleep and alertness. He felt the hard outline of the knife under his pillow, and he tucked a hand next to it, _just to be on the safe side. _

He knew that this was where he belonged, in a crappy motel in a crappy town, sleeping under dirty sheets. But if Sam could change for him, if Sam could bring himself back into the life he hated, maybe Dean could sacrifice a few things to be closer to Sam. After all this was over, they could compromise.

_Is it ever going to be over?_ was his last thought before he gave in to the beckoning hands of sleep.


End file.
